Quotation of the Day…
by Don Boudreaux
on September 30, 2020
… is from page 88 of the May 9th, 2020, draft of the important monograph – forthcoming in October jointly from the Adam Smith Institute and AIER – by Deirdre McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi, The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State (links added):
The State’s projects that in fact prove foolish, such as the Concorde and the Carmichael mine, last for a long, long time, with tax-and-regulation subsidization. The Carmichael mine would be producing coal that nobody would buy at the high cost at which it can be mined well into the age of solar panels. The Concorde lasted from its first unprofitable flight in 1976 to its last unprofitable flight in 2003. Twenty-seven years of failing the test of commercial profitability is to be contrasted with NeXt’s one year, Edsel’s three years, New Coke’s three months, Google Glass 2012-2015, Juicero in 2017 for squeezing oranges (closed down five months after a massive investment in it by Silcom Valley). Declares [Mariana] Mazzucato: the invisible hand, which works quickly, should be replaced by a visible fist of the State, which keeps on pounding. We don’t think so.
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